Some of the best innovations have their origin in the most unlikely of situations. One such is the technology platform developed by Locus, a machine learning-based business-to-business (B2B) logistics management startup that is helping ease problems for ecommerce and delivery companies.

Bengaluru-based Locus owes it to Nishith Rastogi, one of the founders of the startup. "In December 2014 was the infamous Delhi Uber incident. Post that, my sister was coming to Bengaluru. She messaged 'see you at home in 45 minutes'. That just triggered something irrational. There was no statistical basis to have that fear, but what I did every 10 minutes was to ask her to share her location with me," said Rastogi.

This fear got Rastogi and co-founder Geet Garg to come up with RideSafe, a realtime route deviation detection mobile application, wherein one can get to know if a driver is deviating from a pre-decided route. RideSafe was not seen as a monetisation tool, it was just to help people out. But Rastogi and Garg realized that the method used in RideSafe could be a boon for the logistics industry. In February, Rastogi and Garg founded Locus.

Rastogi, a BITS Pilani alumnus, and Garg, an IIT-Kharagpur graduate, had worked together at Amazon Web Services.

Locus helps its clients in managing everything from dispatching, route optimization and real-time driver tracking to managing on field workforce to sending sms alerts to customers.

"We thought many automatic routing solutions would exist, but we discovered that they were designed for very idealistic conditions and for developed markets. That was when we decided that we had to build this for 'on-the-ground' logistics--on-demand or scheduled," said Rastogi. "What we try to do is how can we get one from point A to B without any human intervention? It is a decision-making system which answers where your truck should be and not where it is."

Locus, which works on a pay-per-use model, also helps clients simulate various scenarios based on hardcore data.

"Using Locus, we are able to simulate multiple what-if scenarios and then take larger business calls. For example, we send carpenters on all our delivery vehicles and at one point we questioned ourselves on why we need to send carpenters on all our delivery vehicles. Is there a better way to do? We actually simulated this on Locus. Without the tool, it would have been hypothesis," said Kaustabh Chakraborty, SVP (operations and supply chain) at Urban Ladder.

Some of Locus' other clients include classifieds advertising platform Quickr, logistics company Delhivery and eyewear portal Lenskart.

The startup raised $2.75 million (about Rs 19 crore) in a round of series A funding led by Exfinity Venture Partners with participation from Blume Ventures, BeeNext and Rajesh Ranavat (MD, Fung Capital), in May, and is now piloting its 3D packing engine, which will help in loading a delivery container in the most optimum way.

"We are piloting 3D packing engine with certain customers. We are strengthening the engine and are very excited about this," said Rastogi.